BY NICHOLAS ENGERT When I was growing up in the 1960’s there stood in the corner of our sitting room a magnificent Grundig wireless set. This was radio as furniture – a statement. A polished mahogany cabinet with a facia comprising a loudspeaker grille, below which was the backlit glass “dial” which listed the radio stations from around the world. To either side of the … Continue reading Radio Days
BY JOHN MUSGRAVE The final act of growing up, psychiatrists tell us, is to take responsibility for yourself. Children who never grow up, including sociopaths and the intellectually enfeebled will always blame circumstances and events. Never do they accept that what has happened is down to them. It’s always someone else’s fault. Two examples prove this point. Look at the government and the BBC. Far … Continue reading Persons Responsible
BY ROGER WATSON I have no doubt that many readers of CSM will already be familiar with the BBC Radio 4 sitcom Ed Reardon’s Week. I write this in the hope that I can point some others towards this excellent programme, which began in 2005 and ran its 16th series this year. The eponymous star, played by co-creator Christopher Douglas, is a grumpy, slightly misanthropic failed writer. He … Continue reading Ed Reardon’s Week
BY DOMINIC WIGHTMAN One notices, if one pays attention at all, that we have entered an era where the superlative has murdered the substantive. Where once we measured statements by their truth, we now appraise them by their capacity to startle. A headline declaring ‘Tax Policy Revised’ gathers dust; ‘Minister Claims Eating Cold Beans ‘Worse Than Welfare Cuts’ in Tone-Deaf LBC Interview’ goes viral. It is against this … Continue reading Why I Am Cutting Off My Penis
BY DOMINIC WIGHTMAN Imagine if BBC’s Countryfile became a programme, like Clarkson’s Farm, about what actually happens in the UK Countryside, rather than a show that appeals more to the four in five Brits who live in towns and cities who tend to prefer to coo at the British Countryside, or tut-tut at rural folk who are just trying to earn a crust. Imagine if … Continue reading Landline or Lifeline?
BY JAMES BEMBRIDGE The things people will do for a lick of screen time, I think, looking at a woman disgracing herself before a producer. Shall she be on that show again? The one that won her a retweet by Jordan Peterson. She might, he says, more with his hands than voice. I’m at a party to celebrate the opening of my friend Alex’s production … Continue reading Sunset Over Westminster
BY STEWART SLATER Who am I? Who are you? Don’t worry, you haven’t wandered into an undergraduate philosophy seminar. No, the point of the questions is the answers that you would give. I, for example, am a male of a certain age, born in Scotland. I attended a fee-paying school, the world’s best university and worked in the City. I write a bit (you’ve probably … Continue reading The Fox & the Hounds
BY JOHN MUSGRAVE Today marks the annual anniversary of the death of pirate radio back in 1967. Every year a dwindling band of ageing rockers and ravers mark the passing of the Marine Etc Broadcasting Offences Act; Harold Wilson’s infamous law that sank rock and roll radio. For three glorious years we’d listened to pop music from the high seas. Radio Caroline began broadcasting at … Continue reading On My Radio
BY DOMINIC WIGHTMAN Just imagine if We Brits had a broadcaster across TV, the Web and Radio that was free to access, funded by adverts, therefore reflecting the market, Our Nation. One that backed everything British rather than cocking a snook at it. A service that delivered factual news and illuminating documentaries that boosted British Democracy and, by shining an investigative light, held those in … Continue reading Just Imagine
BY STEWART SLATER What was the most important thing for you to know early on Saturday evening? What was the key thing which had happened in the world? America’s failure, once more, to launch its new rocket perhaps? The ongoing humanitarian catastrophe caused by the floods in Pakistan maybe? The fact that we were inching ever closer to Larry the Cat finally getting a new … Continue reading The Narcissistic Broadcasting Company
BY JON ALEXANDER It finally happened, after months of anticipation, GB News finally arrived to take on the media heavyweights like the BBC and Sky News. Launching with a welcome message from its chairman, Andrew Neil, promising to protect free speech and challenge the conventional Westminster mindset with the tag line “if it matters to you, it matters to us” but niftily followed further on … Continue reading GB News
BY DOMINIC WIGHTMAN Two millennia ago, during a civil war in the Roman Republic, Octavian fought a disinformation war against Mark Anthony. Using verse and catchy slogans printed on to coins, Octavian swayed the Roman people with fake news – claiming that Cleopatra’s lover was a drunkard who disrespected Roman values. He eventually won the war. He became the first Emperor of Rome, ruling for … Continue reading Days of Illusion
BY DOMINIC WIGHTMAN Thanks to modern technology even those of us who rise at five o’clock in the morning can have our social circles operating in the background at that time, while we set about our day’s work, thanks to services like Telegram and Signal. There’s one group I am a member of which has developed an entertaining Statler and Waldorf approach to the day’s … Continue reading TAC
BY ALEXIA JAMES No, Brit Girl, the Germans do not now have a better sense of humour than the British. 30,000 people across 15 countries were asked to name both the “funniest” (“best at making people laugh”) and “least funny” nationality in a poll conducted by Badoo.com. The Germans came out last. They were even below the Belgians. Germans are as funny as Nish Kumar, … Continue reading Germans Are Not Funny
BY ANDREW MOODY In the age of Amazon Prime and Netflix and the thousand channels of Sky TV, and even more importantly, the age of imposed lockdown, is it just me or has TV gotten worse? Ever since 2015’s Straight Outta Compton, the last great movie made within the Hollywood system before Trump’s contentious election, and Harvey Weinstein’s ignominious demise in Rikers Island, movies have … Continue reading Lamenting Daytime TV
BY ALEXIA JAMES Just when the BBC was collecting some brownie points for providing useful and entertaining education material for our home-schooled children in lock-down, those over at BBC News have once again reminded the nation that suicide can be a slow and drawn-out affair – death by a thousand cuts. BBC Editors have been exposed selectively editing a Trump speech and the edit is … Continue reading BBC News Caught Red-Handed
BY QUENTIN PIGG The gotcha inquisitions that have come to form so much of our broadcast news, more suited to cheap tabloid talk shows than serious journalism, offer few answers to a public fearfully in need of them. To witness the intemperate tantrums of Piers Morgan is to mourn a time when television was innocent of the social media revolution, journalism now reduced to 30 … Continue reading Media v People
CSM EDITORIAL When 178-year-old Thomas Cook collapsed last month, British holidaymakers were left stranded in more than 50 countries around the world. The company’s sudden shut-down and liquidation did not include a contingency plan for getting travellers home. Enter the British Government and ATOL. ATOL is a financial protection scheme protecting most air package holidays sold by travel businesses that are based in the UK. … Continue reading Where are the Congratulations?
BY ALEXIA JAMES Wannabe scally Terry Christian is one of those people who you avoid in the street let alone the studio. He’s the sort of a fellow who may not have halitosis but has it by default, as his exaggerated jiggling Mancunian contortions, annoying accent and verbal diarrhoea trump the worst sausage breath at a Mettwurst convention. His appearance recently on Jeremy Vine’s show … Continue reading Let’s Not be Unchristian
BY DOMINIC WIGHTMAN The Americans are way ahead of us Brits when it comes to fighting the culture wars. Their films are better quality, their best e-warriors have ditched their bedrooms for studios and content can be found across the board adopting one or another worldview. The Americans even have the #WalkAway movement, which is beginning to really grate with the enemy…. “Once upon a … Continue reading The BBC Must Fall
